


Older Women

by Quiet_Thistles



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: F/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 18:22:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7065073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quiet_Thistles/pseuds/Quiet_Thistles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(It's currently 1:20 AM where I am why did I stay awake to finish this) I hope this isn't too bad! I figured the two had a lot in common, you know? And REINA DESERVES MORE SUPPORTS GODDAMNIT</p>
            </blockquote>





	Older Women

Woomph! Nyx walked directly into her and, how dreadful, fell over. She looked up and was almost amazed by what she saw.  
“Oh, dear child, forgive me! I wasn’t watching where I was going, I hope you’re alright!” what a mature and kind voice, like that of a mother. Nyx could barely make out the face of the woman, she was completely silhouetted by the light, a vision that made her forget all about being in the body she was in.  
“Are you alright?”  
Nyx snapped back into reality and stood up, dusting herself off. Luckily no one else saw her moment of kiddy awe.  
“Yes, no need to worry, good day,” her childish voice grated on her ears. Now she got a clearer sight of the woman, there was an x shaped scar across the bridge of her nose, and wrinkles under her eyes.

Reina was a little offput by the stare, but tried to smile and ignore it as she wished the girl a good day. Nohrian, obviously, but she must be incredibly gifted to be in the army like this. Reina wondered what she did, possibly magic. Maybe she would seek her out later on and ask? Whatever the future held.

~*~

“Oh! It’s you! Funny how we run into each other like this,” it was hard to make small talk with this girl, Reina found. Her lips would tighten, she’d blink, look down, and stare at her feet.  
“Funny…” the girl echoed quietly, then looked up, “ma’am, do you mind if I ask your age?”  
Reina’s eyes widened. “My child,,” she started, “I am very old, as old as the hills,” she finished with an awkward chuckle.  
“Old as the hills…” Nyx murmured, "you're very beautiful."  
“Thank you, and good day, young lady.” the woman walked by with grace like a dancer.  
Nyx clenched her teeth slightly as she heard the word child again. It couldn’t be helped of course, but it was still felt scrapeish. Nyx sighed.

~*~

“Ma’am, what did it feel like, to age?”  
Reina almost had enough of this girl and her probing questions. She was awkward, blunt, and standoffish, carrying books thicker than her waist and immediately leaving to her quarters after any given battle or any meal, but Reina supposed any child prodigy would be like this, too much for peers their age and too little for anyone older, but what did she want with her? Why would she ask such things, did she have any manners?  
“That’s a strange question, my child, you shouldn’t be in such a rush to grow up.”  
“Oh but I want to grow up, I don’t want to be in this body anymore,” Nyx felt her fingers tense around the book in her grasp, “I hate being a child, because I am not a child,” her voice had actually risen a bit, Subaki from across the table looked up at her from his encyclopedia of herbs.  
“I’m sorry, I don’t under—” Reina said.  
“I know, I will explain myself,” Nyx sat beside the woman, keeping her back straight as she set the book in her lap. “As a child I was incredibly gifted in the magic arts, to the point where I’d toy with powerful and dark spells. I tested my spells on the innocent, I gave no care for human life and I killed indiscriminately, I was a monster… then one of my curses backfired, and I was trapped to this body,” Nyx laughed under her breath, “I must be your age by now, yet I look like a little girl, but I am nothing more than a murderer.”  
Reina was horrified, and yet she pitied her still. “Can you reverse it? The curse, I mean.”  
Nyx shook her head, “I have already tried a thousand times over.”  
The kinshi knight looked at her hands in her lap. She pressed her thumbs together, thinking that all this time, with her fascination with combat and war there was an ally who felt her hands were eternally stained with blood. How strange that things should work like this.  
“I’ll let you in on a secret, older folk only,” Reina beckoned with a hand for Nyx’s ear. “If my back ever starts to ache, I’ll tell a particularly naughty unit that it’ll be a wonderful day and they should spend it outside, but in reality it’ll start to rain!”  
Nyx’s eyes were round, “so you mean you can predict weather by the aches in your body?” Reina nodded, “oh but the aches are dreadful! Sometimes it’s hard to keep flying!”  
“Tell me more.”  
Subaki felt the need to leave the mess hall almost immediately.

~*~

“I do wish I had children, or at least nephews and nieces, I find them all to be adorable,” Reina sighed. Another night of conversing with Nyx and she found herself speaking for the most part, Nyx listening intently. It was cathartic for the two of them to talk, Reina never really had someone who’d bother to listen to her complain about aches or speak of the differences of her generation and the current one. And Nyx never had an insight on adult life. They were good friends.  
“I as well have thought of children, but it wouldn’t work out.”  
“Well how come?”  
Nyx smiled, “it only takes a look, dear Reina, I cannot find a husband looking like this.”  
“I wouldn’t say that just yet,” Reina thought of how, the other morning during practice, Subaki, the charming boy, had asked her about her newfound friend and her relationship status, “I believe there’s a certain young man who’s taken some interest in you, dear Nyx.”  
“May I ask who?” the rush of words would’ve sounded elementary to the insensitive ear.  
“Oh, let him come to you.”  
Nyx’s cheeks puffed up, but she nodded in understanding. “I do hope he’s cute, though..” she murmured.

~*~

“Dear Reina, Subaki spoke to me today.” Reina was straightening out her laundry.  
“Oh? What about?” she didn’t look up from her folding.  
“He said I seemed lonely, as if I viewed myself higher than everyone else because of my situation.”  
“That sounds a little rude, coming from him.”  
“I don’t know, he said he couldn’t help but worry about me”  
“Hmm,” Reina took a second to think, “would you like me to talk to him?”  
“No! No, I believe I can handle it myself.”  
“Alright.”

~*~

“Now we talked about coffee versus tea, Hoshidans don’t like coffee, is what I gathered.” Nyx reported, this time in the barracks.  
“Yes, I had it once myself, I truly disliked the taste.”  
“I gave him to rest of mine.”  
A smile pulled at Reina’s lips, “how intimate of you. Is he growing on you?”  
Nyx looked down at the floor, thankful for the veil she constantly wears as she responded with a faint “a little.”  
“Then pursue a friendship with him! I encourage it.”  
“I’ll try my best.”

~*~

“He learned how to brew coffee, the lengths he will go is almost astounding,” Nyx was swinging her legs back and forth while she sat on a table where Reina sat on the seat.  
“It’s astounding how you always seem to talk about him now,” the knight replied.  
“Well I rarely speak to just anyone, dear Reina.”  
“So now he isn’t just anyone?”  
“No! Of course not! In fact, we just spent the day making coffee together, the pot he presented me was wonderful.”  
Reina liked to listen to her friend speak so enthusiastically over someone else. It was as if she were emerging from the shell she grew around herself, or maybe it was Subaki’s persistence that chipped away at it. Either way, Reina trusted their relationship would go smoothly.

~*~

“Oh, um, pardon? Miss Reina?” the kinshi knight turned around and found him standing behind her, his pegasus reins in his right hand. The horse whinnied softly.  
“Yes, what do you need, er— Subaki was it?”  
“Yes! Yes, Miss Reina, that’s me. I was looking for you because I wanted to ask you something, a-about someone.”  
“Whom do you speak of, dear?”  
“It’s about Nyx.” Reina stifled a laugh after hearing that. “You two are fairly close, yes?”  
“I’d say so.”  
“Then do you know if she likes tea?”  
Tea? Reina was a little disappointed.”I wouldn’t say I do.”  
“Alright, th-thank you, Miss Reina.”

~*~

“Reina!” the lilt in Nyx’s voice was unexpected, it made Reina jump a little.  
“Dear Nyx?”  
“He’s invited me to make tea, matcha you call it?”  
“Yes, very delicious finish.”  
“He also, confessed to me.”  
“Really?!”  
“Yes!”  
“I’m very happy for you.”  
“Oh no, I had actually turned him down.”  
“Hm? How come, dear Nyx?”  
“I’m not quite sure, actually. He’s told me he doesn’t care about my age, and he, I guess I should say compromised, to a friendship.”  
Reina smiled, and put her hands on Nyx’s shoulders, “I’m still very happy to hear that. Nyx, I want you to make many friends in this world, starting with him, do you understand?”  
Nyx looked puzzled for a second, then she nodded. Reina then offered her a hug, which she took graciously.  
“Thank you Reina, thank you for being my friend”  
“Oh Nyx, please don’t cry.”  
“I’m *sniff* not crying!”


End file.
